Supercharged El Nino is threatening even more deadly heatwaves, so why are we ignoring the risks?

For many people, summer now means confronting a punishing heatwave at some point. And a historic, supercharged global El Nino event isn’t going to make matters any better — with more intense heat domes forecast this year on top of rising temperatures linked to man-made climate change, meteorologist Jeff Berardelli says. “About 90pc of models say this will be a ‘historic event’, an event so intense it doesn’t exist in our approximately 175-year record. And the models show big impacts worldwide,” he said. Despite these extreme conditions, large numbers of peoples are indifferent. Some two-thirds of US adults are not moderately or very worried about extreme heat, according to a recent study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. This might be partly down to how the mass media has typically portrayed summer heat — as “fun in the sun” with people slurping ice-creams, sunbathing and diving into lakes. “The potential danger is that these images can make extreme heat seem pleasant, ordinary or manageable — especially to people who do not already see heat as a serious health risk.” And the biggest danger is not hurricanes, tornadoes or blizzards — it’s the heat itself. Data from five EU countries already shows nearly 10,000 excess deaths linked to the extreme heat this summer. The invisible killer can strain organ function and forces the heart to work harder to pump blood. Yet, positive images — in the news, in ads and on social media — all lessen the sense of urgency that heat is a threat, weakening the motivation to take protective actions, such as checking on vulnerable people or avoiding exercise outdoors. That’s concerning, because the world is getting hotter. “By associating periods of extreme heat with positive feelings, we are inadvertently welcoming a dangerously climate-changed world, rather than taking the opportunity to consider how we might work to a more resilient future,” said Sylvia Hayes of Exeter University, who has also conducted separate research on “fun in the sun” images. Rising temperatures are largely the consequence of decades of unfettered burning of oil and gas. A decade ago, the world came together to agree on curbing global temperature rise to try to reduce human suffering, but countries have blown past those limits. Now, the El Nino is only compounding matters. “There’s no telling who will get the heat domes, but we can expect more intense heat domes all around the northern hemisphere this summer,” says Berardelli. Yale researchers say the media should be mindful of the images used in reports about extreme heat. In a 2025 survey of nearly 4,000 adults, negative or neutral pictures — like those of people seeking cooling relief — increased respondents’ levels of concern about heatwaves and climate change. The Yale study found that peoples’ interpretation of the message may be affected more heavily by pictures because of how much faster the brain processes images versus text. The researchers suggest that news organisations build bigger photo libraries so journalists on tight deadlines have better options to illustrate their stories — like vulnerable people showing signs of heat exhaustion, families trying to cool down or threatened infrastructure. Even an image of people under umbrellas in the sun is preferable to frolicking on a beach, they said.